Ethylene vinyl acetate Overview Transcript

Ethylene vinyl acetate, also known as EVA, is a plastic product derived from the copolymerisation of ethylene with vinyl acetate.

EVA’s main advantages include its properties of clarity and toughness, along with strong flexibility and ability to withstand low temperatures. It also has good tear resistance.

The main uses for EVA are in the manufature of stretch film for shrink wrapping, protective strips, sports shoe soles, sandals, slippers and disposable medical equipment. It is also used as a coating for heat-sealing on polypropylene, polyethylene terephthalate and aluminium films. Other uses include insulating tubing and wire-coating.

In recent years supply of the lower EVA grades has been dwindling as producers focus production on grades with vinyl acetate content of above 30% in response to growing demand for this grade from the solar panel industry.

Supply and demand fundamentals drive Asia’s EVA prices. Demand has outstripped supply in recent years with strong interest from the downstream footwear sector and increasingly, the photovoltaic industry. Other key influences on the market include price trends of polyethylene because most EVA factories in Asia are EVA and PE swing plants

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Ethylene vinyl acetate: Market overview

Updated to Q4 2014

Prices of ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) may experience a stable-to-soft trend in the last quarter of 2014 on ample supply and sluggish demand. A combination of downbeat economic climate and softening co-product low density polyethylene (LDPE) prices were weighing on the overall market sentiment, prompting a major EVA producer to negotiate deals on a case-by-case basis.

Some end-users in China said they were inclined to procure cargoes on a need-to basis for the fourth quarter, as well as to minimise their inventories to two weeks’ worth instead of the normal one or two months’ worth, in the event that EVA prices remain higher than expected. The peak demand season in late September and October has been increasingly less pronounced compared with previous years, they added.

The majority of producers, however, were inclined to keep prices stable at the least, with expectations of a demand recovery in the second half of October, although feedstock ethylene prices have started to slide from previous highs.

Some converters in the photovoltaic industry, on the other hand, said EVA resin prices may potentially be bolstered by stocking up activities in the downstream solar panel industry in the fourth quarter.

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Ethylene Vinyl Acetate Methodology

Ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) is a product derived from the copolymerisation of ethylene with vinyl acetate.

About

About Ethylene vinyl acetate

Ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) is a copolymer that is manufactured from ethylene and vinyl acetate monomer (VAM). The main advantages of EVA is that it has good toughness, flexibility, clarity and gloss, the ability to withstand low temperatures, and good tear resistance.

In packaging applications, the resins can be made into blown, extruded, cast and coextruded films, or blended with other resins. They can be moulded and extruded into soft plastic items such as hoses and tubes, formulated into hot melt adhesives, and used in plastic compounding, wire and cable insulation.

EVA is also used as a coating for heat sealing on polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and aluminium films. A growing use for EVA is in solar cells as an encapsulation material.